I must apologize
for not replying to your chit before long.My
only excuse is that when I received it I was in the throes of handing
over and generally cleaning up prior to leaving for India, as I then
hoped en route for Mespot or Palestine - & in the rush I frankly
overlooked it.

I’m afraid there is very little
I can and to what I have already written your father
[2]
.Tandy
[3]
was taken ill on the Sunday, the last one in
December 1917.He wouldn’t have a doctor at first,
and they nursed him until the Wednesday with the assistance of
his boy and mine, when his temperature going up I sent for Aubrey
[4]
.Tandy wasn’t very bad then, only
continually sick. As you probably know I had been living in the next
room to him in the club for 15 months. On the Thursday I was in court
when Aubrey sent me a chit that Tandy had to go to hospital, and
I came out of Court, packed up for him, and took him up the Peak.

He was fairly
seedy for the next 14 days with a temperature, but we were not alarmed
since it looked like a very mild case typhoid. His temperature then
went down around normal, and the doctor said that, barring unforeseen
accidents, he was out of all danger, though Aubrey always told me
that he could never guarantee any typhoid case until it was out a
hospital.

I saw Tandy
during this period, but did not go out from the Monday to Thursday
a week before he died, since other people want to see him, and the
doctors reports were more than comforting.

On the Thursday
evening (just a week before he died) he started internal bleeding,
one of the things I gather they dreaded in the cursed disease.

The doctors
declined to let me see him on the Friday but let me up on the Saturday,
largely I think to see whether I could buck him up a little.I saw him on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday, but was not
allowed in again. Frankly I can only say that Tandy from the Saturday
had choked his hand in.This
is the only phrase which will describe it.

It is very
easy to say that he should have made a fight of it, but you’ve
got to remember that he had been on milk for some five weeks, with
a temperature of good deal of the time, and I honestly think he was
so weak and tired, that he didn’t much care what happened.

From what
he said to me I’m clear he thought he had very little chance,
but he didn’t appear at all dismayed at the thought.Of
course he was only allowed to talk very little, and my sole object
was to endeavour to cheer him up, and get him to make a struggle
for it.So I wouldn’t admit the possibility of his dying.From Monday on I understand he was practically
unconscious the whole time until he died.

I don’t
think anything more could have been done, and so far as I’m
aware not the slightest blame can be laid at the door of that much
abused spot the Peak Hospital.In Aubrey I have the most absolute confidence.It
was just fate before which we must all bow, though it was a bitter
waste of a valuable life, and the loss of my best friend in the East.

If there’s
anything further I can tell you please let me know.

You must
excuse his untidy scroll, but I am in dock at present just getting
over a rather bad goal of tonsillitis and rheumatism and am still
a bit shaky.

I’m
read my last chance of seeing any scrapping has vanished.I
very nearly squeezed into a draft for Persia six weeks ago which
is about the ultimate hope of fighting, at any rate in Asia, but
they refuse me because I hadn’t shot my course in India.

Being a
Tommy out here is far from cushy, but nonetheless has many things
to be said for it, and is certainly an experience I would not miss.I
only regret is that I didn’t go home four years ago, though
that was no fault of mine, but the damned Hong Kong Government.

Your father
wrote me to hand you some personal effects of Tandy, (a watch signet
ring etc.) when you come to Hong Kong.These
have been sealed up and are in my firm’s hands, from whom you
can obtain them at any time, either personally or by letter.

[3]
“Tandy” Andrew Hugh Gilmore JACKSON (1881-1918)was a
nephew of Sir Thomas JACKSON and a son of Andrew Coulter Bradford
JACKSON & Eliza Emily GILMORE. He was born and raised at the
family farms at Lions Den &
Forstertown – both near Trim in Co. Meath, Ireland. At the
time of his death, he was a broker with Messrs. Wright & Hornby
–previously owned in part by James Francis WRIGHT, also a
relation.